conferences. It didn't help. And for 1980. I thought so too.
1980. I thought so too. After watching
all that is written negatively about
them, Reagan's performances don't
hurt.
As a rule, voters and politicians,
unschooled in nuances of seeing the
future as they may be, have a better
g r a s p of the political drift than
reporters do. Virtually every reporter
I know t h o u g h t Carter whipped
Reagan in their d e b a t e in October
I O Q 6 e O I O Q O Q O
WOMEN'S WORTH
~..,omparable worth" rules are a
new feminist proposal to use regula-
tion to achieve equal incomes be-
tween men and women, by legally
mandating that "male dominated"
and "female dominated" occupations
judged to be of equivalent difficulty
by state or federal agencies be paid
equally. To date comparable-worth
rules have been instituted--at a cost
of over five million dollars annually---
for city ~vorkers in San Jose, Cali-
fornia, and the idea of "comparable
worth" was cited in a recent sex dis-
crimination c a s e - - a t a cost of $52
million---against a major airline.
Today comparable worth is being
considered in Montgomery County,
Maryland, and elsewhere, but the
Bruce Powell Majors has written for
Inquiry, the Washington Times, and
other publications.
28
much of 1980 that Carter's prospects Reagan. There is a clamor among
the debate, I was driving to Philadel-
phia and listening to Larry K i n g ' s
call-in show on the radio..Virtually
every caller was knocking Carter
mercilessly, notably for his comment
about Amy and nuclear proliferation.
The more I heard, the more I knew I
had been wrong in assessing the
debate.
Politicians sensed in 1979 and
-_. . - . . . . .
6 0 e e Q O Q S Q q Q a O ~ e I O q Q t Q Q 0 0 0 r
"real target," according to Cornell
economist George Hildebrand, is
"federal intervention into the occupa-
tional wage and salary structure on a
very large, and possibly even massive
scale." Any such shift will involve a
transfer of power concerning wage
bargaining from millions of employ-
ers who know the particular jobs and
employees involved to a small num-
ber of federal bureaucrats who do not
have this information.
The " n e e d " for comparable-worth
regulation is based on the following
statistics. In 1939, the median income
of women who worked year-round
was 58 percent of the median income
of men. In 1981, despite passage of
the Equal Pay Act and other anti-
discrimination laws, women earned
59 percent of the median income of
men. This according to figures of-
fered at a recent congressional
S 0
OF H 1
IH Fl( a
Sarkes Tarzian inc. Bloomington, Indiana
were not so good for reelection,
though most every reporter in Wash-
ington figured that Carter would at
least be able to beat Reagan. Senator
Howard Baker, always a favorite with
the press, might be tough, but not
Reagan..In any case, there was a
clamor among Democrats to get
Carter off the top of the ticket. Just
the opposite is happening now with
| O
hearing by Dr. Janet Norwood, com-
missioner of the Bureau of Labor
Statistics. But does this mean that
the Equal Pay Act and other anti-
discrimination laws have failed (as-
suming that they were ever needed)?
Consider the following evidence:
*The 1973 Economic Report to the
P r e s i d e n t contained a section on
" T h e Economic Role of W o m e n , "
which revealed that women in their
thirties who had worked continuously
since high school earned slightly
more than men in their thirties who
had worked continuously since high
school.
*Economist Thomas Sowell (in
Affirmative Action Reconsidered) re-
ports that unmarried female academ-
ics earn" slightly more than unmarried
male academics.
9Researcher Helen Astin's study,
"Career Profiles of Woman Doctor-
- -:_ ~ . . . . .
.......
__
Republicans for assurance that he
will run again. The fear is that with-
out him, the party loses, even to
former Vice President Walter Mon-
dale and especially to Senator John
Glenn. Republican politicians know
that Reagan is on a roll, his political
strength building. But they sure
d i d n ' t learn this from reading the
paper or watching TV news. E]
I I I l II __ Ill II _
g O Q lip I 9 qlll O lip O qlll O O OII I O O lip O O O O B Q , O O l l ~ O O J l l IIr I O O O O O
by Bruce Powell Majors
ates" (in Academic Women on the
Move), presents evidence that un-
married female academics become
full professors faster than unmarried
male academics.
In short, there is a good deal of
evidence that single women and men
with similar work experience do earn
equal pay.
Nevertheless, considered as eco-
nomic aggregates, working women
and working men do not receive
equal pay. Why? Because the jobs
women go into do not pay as much as
the jobs men go into. And why is
that? The feminist answer, given to
us by W a s h i n g t o n Post columnist
Judy Mann, is that "jobs requiting
strength and endurance were given"
more value than jobs requiting tact
or patience."
Clearly, this answer is wrong.
Computer p r o g r a m m i n g and engi-
neering, two relatively male-domi-
nated fields which pay well, require
patience. Housework and its com-
mercial equivalents, customarily
female-dominated fields, are not paid
very well, yet do require some
strength and endurance. But the fun-
damental error in the feminist think-
ing is the belief that "value" is "giv-
en" by a central person or group -1-
that the price of services like cleaning
or computer programming is set con-
clusively and that "w~" can change
it, without any ill consequences.
Noble laureate-Friedrich Hayek
exposed this error in his classic
essay, " T h e Use of Knowledge in
Society"-
What is the problem we wish to solve
when we try to construct a rational
economic order? On certain familiar
assumptions the answer is simple enough.
_ _
If we possess all relevant information, if
THE AMERICANSPEcTATOR JULY 1983
we can start out from a given system of her pretty little head about a chal- Of w h e t h e r feminist values a r e not immigration, tariffs, and trade quotas
preferences, and i f we command com- lenging career. b e s t attained by private and volun- as a means to protect themselves
plete knowledge of available means, the Third, the studies by economist tary means. But Adrienne Rich lives from competition.
problem which remains is purely one of
logic. That is, the answer to the question Thomas Sowell and researcher Helen near Cambridge, w h e r e political Because of uncertainties about the
of what is the best use of available means Asfin cited earlier reveal that for most power is often merely an object of profitability of investing in a new
is implicit in our assumptions . . . . couples marriage advances the hus- contemplation. In Washington, D.C., ERA campaign, the National Organi-
This, however, is emphatically not the 9 band's career and inhibits that of the 9 where power iseveryone's bread and zation for Women and other feminist
economic problem which society faces, wife; single men and women in the butter, the P o s t ' s Judy Mann is b u s y organizations realize they must have
And the economic calculus which we have
developed to solve the logical problem same field and of the same age have informing us that "labor unions, the a program to put forward to attract
does not provide an answer to it. The equal incomes. Most men make Democratic Party a n d women's new members and contributors---if
reason for this is that the "data" from d e m a n d s on their wives' time and organizations a r e now supporting they are to continue to exist. This is
which the economic calculus starts are energy that prohib!t women from comparable worth standards." not to say that feminist organizational
never for the whole society "given" to a c o m m i t t i n g t h e m s e l v e s to their This is hardly an a r g u m e n t that leaders do not believe in comparable
single mind which could work out the
implications and can never be so given. careers as fully as male workers in comparable Worth will benefit wom- worth---only that they have to believe
the same field. Were comparable- en. Labor unions in Britain d u r i n g in it.
worth regulations actually to b e the industrial revolution and in the As for the D e m o c r a t i c p a r t y , its
enforced, they would work as a sub- United States during the Progressive platform, like that of the Republi-
S u p p o r t e r s of comparable worth Sidy to this traditional marriage, by era supported protective labor legis- cans, is r a t h e r often composed of
believe that the ecoeomic problem abolishing the wife's incentive to de- lation and the "family wage" system empty words, meant only to appease
consists of nothing more than achiev- mand more domestic equality--the in Order to drive female competition some special-interest group. If work-
ing their "system of preferences," higher wages e a r n e d by tired or out of the labor force. Labor unions in ing women are lucky, "comparable
i.e., uniformity in m e n ' s and wo- distracted w o m e n w o r k e r s would California in the early part of this worth" will remainwords. But if they
men's incomes. By overlooking the provide them with (false) information centurysupported the institution of are n o t , a new group will join the
more fundamental problem---that of that they were in fact successfully laws against smoking opium and permanent underclass of Americans
collecting the "data," the informa- combining marriage and career, even other practices peculiar to Chinese who cannot legally obtain employ-
tion about supply and d e m a n d for when their h u s b a n d s had n o t workers. Labor unions today support ment. And it will join under an old
goods and services, which is scat- changed their behavior. minimum-wage laws, restrictions on and familiar name: ',housewife." [7]
t e r e d t h r o u g h o u t the economy in On this point, there is some
isolated bits---they will wreak havoc evidence t h a t comparable-worth
with t h e e c o n o m y , and in. so doing r9.gulations and other feminist social
wipe out many of the more positive engineering just cannot be imposed
contributions of 9the feminist move- on an entire e c o n o m y o v e r a n y
ment. The main victims ofcornpar: significant length of time. Hedrick
able worth will thus be women, Smith r e t u r n e d from the USSR, a 9

who will be affected in a t least three country that combines near-complete

ways. control of the e c o n o m y with a
First, comparable-worth laws will nominal c o m m i t m e n t to w o m e n ' s
do for women (and a few men) who liberation, with the [ollowing report:
e n t e r the labor market t h r o u g h
traditionally feminine jobs what mini- In RusSia, equal pay for equal work is an
m u m - w a g e laws have done for mi- accepted principle, but getting the equal
Work is the problem. Millions of women
nority teenagers: it will price them are shunted into the lower-paying, less
out of the labor market. A 1981 report prestigious fields. Teaching and medicine
of the National Research Council, are prime examples. These are practically
prepared under contract to the U.S. at the bottom of the pay and status scales
Equal E m p l o y m e n t Opportunity and these are the professions in which
women are most heavily represented. In
Commission, noted that comparable industry, women work mostly in the light,
~vorth would result in " r e d u c i n g consumer sector where, according to
employment either because employ- Soviet studies, pay and all other benefits
ers shift to alternative, less labor- are well below those in heavy industry
intensivemethods of production or[if (where men predominate). In farming,
women provide the core of the low-paid,
the new labor cost were paid and unskilled field hands while men operate
p a s s e d on] b e c a u s e consumers the machinery and get better pay.
might switch to other, less expensive Perhaps most indicative of the situation
goods and services." Many working nationwide, one major Soviet economic
women will think they are being study drafting a working-class family
"liberated" by feminist social engi- budget assumed that the husband would
9 earn 50 percent more than the wife.
neering, only to find that they are
losing their jobs t o machines, as Such considerations have led some
school teachers are replaced by corn: feminists to question whether the
puter terminals, nurses bymonitor- problems that concern them can
ing e q u i p m e n t , and waiters and simply be solved by governmental
waitresses (and restaurants) by fast- social e n g i n e e r i n g . Feminist poet
food enterprises. Adrienne Rich, h e r s e l f a socialist,
Second, if women have nothing to a s k e d in a recent book, "How much
lose by staying in jobs requiring skills does this really have to do with
that many workers have (and hence capitalism, and how much with the
consumers do not Value highly), they system w h i c h . . , predated capital-
will have no incentive to move into ism and survived under socialism
traditionally male-dominated fields. - - - p a t r i a r c h y ? " Stripped of t h e
Comparable worth tells the woman jargon, Rich is coming dangerously
entering the labor force not to worry close to posing the heretical question

THE AMERICANSPECTATOR JULY 1983